Obamacare Mandate: Fighting for Our First Freedom All Over Again

Today, the House Judiciary Committee held a full committee hearing to investigate the Obama administration’s unprecedented overreach through the latest Obamacare mandate’s assault on religious liberty.

Asma Uddin, an attorney with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, testified at the hearing on the administration’s insulting disregard for the right to religious freedom.

“As a Muslim-American woman and an academic, I have spent my career fighting for women’s and minority’s rights, and the fact that I must be here today to explain why our constitutional rights exist is extremely offensive to me personally,” Uddin stated.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is currently representing four religious organizations that do not qualify for the rule’s narrow religious exemption and will be forced to provide and pay for employee health insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization – regardless of their religious and moral objections to such services.

The mandate places the organizations represented by the Becket Fund and countless others – including hospitals, schools, and social service groups – in an untenable situation: forced to either violate their deeply held beliefs or forego providing health insurance and pay costly annual fines for doing so.

“[T]he mandate imposes a substantial burden on our clients.” Uddin explained. “In fact, it’s so severe that our clients will be forced to stop providing health insurance altogether and pay penalties up to $620,000 per year for non-compliance.”

With limited funds diverted to the high annual fines that come with dropping health insurance coverage under Obamacare, the mandate could signal serious trouble for organizations’ necessary work in civil society.

“Without employer health plans, many religious institutions would find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other employers,” explained Uddin in written testimony. “Some religious institutions could find that without a group health plan, they could not attract sufficient staff and would be forced to close their operations altogether.”

That could mean fewer organizations caring for the sick, feeding the poor, and educating the next generation.

Worse, the Obama administration has not backed down from forcing religious employers to violate their beliefs and has not compromised on the coercive mandate. In a February 10 press conference, the President promised to “accommodate” the consciences of non-exempted religious employers. But within hours of that press conference, the Obama administration filed the final rule – without change.

“The press conference was merely a smokescreen that sadly fooled much of the American public who were rightly concerned by the mandate,” Uddin remarked, while explaining that the promised “compromise” is an unworkable, non-solution.

“We were shocked to read that they asked the court to dismiss the case because of a “promise” to shift the costs to insurance companies at some point in the future,” Uddin explained at the hearing. “To add further insult to injury, last night, the Administration responded to our second case on behalf of Colorado Christian University, again failing to respond to any of our client’s legitimate constitutional claims, and instead asking for a dismissal based on their ‘promise.’”

“[D]espite these severe burdens on our clients’ constitutional rights, the government, in its response last night, continues to provide no compelling interest that justifies forcing monks and nuns to hand out abortion drugs,” Uddin continued.

Responding to false claims that opposition to the mandate’s violation of liberty is confined to men, Uddin stated:

“Women, too, seek the freedom to live in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Religious freedom is a right enjoyed by everyone, and it is just as much in women’s interest to protect that right as it is in men’s.”

The violation of liberty evidenced in this particular mandate is a taste of the health care law’s broader attack on individual freedom. The coercive nature of the rule is just the tip of the Obamacare iceberg in terms of defining the law’s “essential benefits” package. To ensure protection of religious freedom and individual liberty for all Americans – female and male – Obamacare must be repealed.

Sarah Torre focuses on policy issues related to religious liberty, marriage and family as policy analyst in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research

Join The Discussion

Let be perfectly honest! Does anyone doubt that when Obama bribed and lied to certain members of Congress to get ObamaCare passed, he and they did not know what ObamaCare would do. When Pelosi said her now famous line about "passing the bill to learn what's in it" she did't know this was in it. Everyone of them knew, but deliberately voted to pass the most serious attempt to socialize not only our
medical system, but this nation as well.

Let be perfectly honest! Does anyone doubt that when Obama bribed and lied to members of Congress to get ObamaCare passed, he and they did not know what ObamaCare would do. When Pelosi said her now famous line about "passing the bill to learn what's in it" she did't know this was in it. Everyone of them knew, but deliberately voted to pass the most serious attempt to socialize not only our medical system, but this nation as well.

Sets one to wondering, will there be an election in November or will the results not be somehow discarded by this administration. They wouldn't issue such mandates and regulations if they didn't expect to hold onto power for ever. Be very wary folks!

all the smiling faces and clapping hands as the president signs over our personal control of our livelihoods to himself. why does any American accept Nancy Pelosi's ignorance and dereliction? this is the most dangerous act of government control the American government FORCED us into.

It's easy for the wrong people to involve government where it's never existed and unconstitutionally while in government positions to thieve personal freedoms. It's gonna be difficult getting them back all because of their unconstitutional interference.

This would be without proposal and considered unethical if we had a government that respected their oath of office.

It seems as though he has written off religious groups for 2012. However, any concessions or compromises he makes at this point would be only for political purposes; he would certainly reverse course after his re-election. The die should now be cast in the minds of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, etc. who gave Obama a chance in 2008. No second chances, fellow faithful, none whatsoever.

I have a question not pertaining to Obamacare but religious freedom. Does anyone know the legal statutes pertaining to a local school board commencing with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer by a school board member. The Pledge is not the issue, one individual was uncomfortable with prayer now it has been voted out.

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